So SimCity. Who's getting it

[EtherealN]

A certain size can be reach while keeping self-sufficiency. This is fairly large given the size of the maps. (I've done 200k inhabitants so far, seems to be where troubles start, but I'm still learning when I have time to play.)

 

However, the way this works makes "inhabitant-count" a bit obsolete. For example, you can target tourism and shopping, meaning that you don't get a high count of your "own" inhabitants, rather people that drive/ride/fly etcetera into your city from the others in the region to do their shopping. Or gambling. Or general tourism, etcetera. The high-pop cities I've made so far have been industrial ones - spewing huge amounts of pollution at my poor neighbors... :P

[Wolf Rider]

Got it, thanks

[Stickers]

More information on the DRM fiasco.

 

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/12/simcity-server-not-necessary/

 

 

As a former Flying Crew Chief, I am and will always be against always online style of DRM. Video games kept me ****ing sane when I was in. It's not just deployed military personal that are affected by this style of DRM, those who travel all the time are curbed. People living in rural areas are left with no options.

 

I really want to play it! And I'm in debt and really have no money to buy it but would charge it right now if the online DRM was just dropped.

[Ali Fish]

yep. Turning out to be quite the debacle this is. I watched Maxis yesterday on reddit try their best to remove the wool pulled over folks eyes. Thankfully the powers at be are unable to silence the escalating truths of the matter. I am suprised about the main media coverage though. Coverage of the next EA title is essential to their business requirments and i find it all very strange. how far will it go. What is going on behind the scenes is more entertaining for sure.

 

Maxis need to kickstart their own project. thats the future of what we as consumers want. the bigger and more prolific crowd funding gets the easier it is to get the products we want. and thus we shant be "fed" again in this realm. As a consumer if your not utterly pissed off at EA`s activity in every single area there is somthing wrong with you. Sooner we loose this nonsense the better. mainstream BS at it again. why ? do people claim to be mainstream or something? i think not. Once upon a time it all made sense. Gamers made games and it was an art form of sorts. the only art form left is just how to squeeze you for more through it.

 

 

watching videos now about how the pathfinding is quite broken. for me its a direct parallel with how i feel the good gaming folks are buying into this. Queues and queues of people travelling to some event ingame via a dirt road because its the shortest route, Yep thats a good simulation of mainstream stupidity. Ha! it might aswell be long queues for the next untested, mired with controversy simcity game in the simcity game itself. maybe there is a special lemon shop ingame too ?

 

Irregardless of piracy and irregardless of community petitions @75K+ this title has attracted attention in a rather underground realm in a large way. I fear only EA are to blame for what i think is about to happen.

Edited March 13, 2013 by Ali Fish

[Stickers]

I read most of that reddit post(there was a lot to read!). The population fudging is curious to me. Such simple code that I could understand it! Seems like they put a lot of time and resources into the eye candy but failed to create a solid infrastructure.

[cichlidfan]

I've seen messages about Zombies, but didn't look close enough to see if there actually were zeds on the streets. Laughed a bit at it though. There's a lot of humor hidden away in this game. :P

 

I haven't spotted one of the little buggers yet but...

[Mohamengina]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/13/simcitys-sims-dont-seem-that-smart-after-all/

 

Not me. This is the cherry on top of the shit-cake for me not buying it.

[TurboHog]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/13/simcitys-sims-dont-seem-that-smart-after-all/

 

Not me. This is the cherry on top of the shit-cake for me not buying it.

 

What a joke!

 

Age of Empires 2 HD here I come!

[upupandaway]

I feel kinda stupid for pre-purchasing this game. Everybody must have been thinking "what the hell can go wrong with sim city?" - so was I.

Lost complete trust in EA/Maxis thanks to the tiny number of servers they made available at launch. All their communication to the outside world is nothing but a smokescreen and cheap excuses trying to obscure the fact that they simply were too cheap to afford more servers. Or were their calculations for expected server load wrong by over 300%, starting with four servers and then two days later going up to ~16 or so?! What were the 2 betas good for then? What the hell were they thinking?! Sim City is not an MMO...

 

At least lhe pre-purchase of FC3 turned out to be a decision I don´t regret. :)

Edited March 14, 2013 by upupandaway

[Ali Fish]

I feel kinda stupid for pre-purchasing this game.

 

Nah, dont, just remeber what happened for future reference, that means dont Forget !

 

INCREDIBLE!.Its the Lies that gets me. but they are getting everything they deserve now. this is just the pleasant posts around, delve deeper and you can find out the global efforts involved to change this game in the name of giving people what they wanted and deserved for their money. Ea just see`s you like rechargable batteries that keep them at the top of their game. choice is yours at the end of the day. Red for me.

 

this is the biggest of cluster funks that could possibly occurr and the genuine end user will suffer whilst those willing to make the game playable can make the game playable and make the game more than EA would let it be without milking you for more. EA should be a making a game that gets "PLAYED", but no they are blinded and there is more emphasis on "NOT" being able to play the game via ingenious methods to stop people who shouldnt be playing the game, its insanity, make games to be played for crying out loud. its positivly backwards. in making simcity playable they actually concentrated on making it not playable. can you see what i mean ?

 

more lies customer service lies, apparently EA can sell on a hard copy with the code used. they just cant refund you for your digital copy lolololol.

http://imgur.com/a/BNqy6

 

and the mainstream edition of todays news.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-03-14-simcity-modded-so-it-can-be-played-offline-indefinitely

 

and here is the response

 

"EA does not comment on rumour and speculation,"

 

i do find it very ironic that everyone that bought into this wants to play it offline. and thats not a good thing, but thats the power of the preorder i guess. yesterday was the day anyone could try the game out if you know what i means! but i dont believe its this type of customer that is leading the way in where its all going, iam aware it can look like that but this is genuine backlash and not from some hypocritical group.

Edited March 14, 2013 by Ali Fish

[Splat]

Just saw this on RPS. I can't say I'm really surprised by all this, unfortunately. Of course the game already has terraforming and region editing built-in; how else would they sell it to you later?

 

This whole SimCity debacle keeps getting better and better.

 

[EtherealN]

All their communication to the outside world is nothing but a smokescreen and cheap excuses trying to obscure the fact that they simply were too cheap to afford more servers.

 

Er?

 

They've made a statement that it was a stupid miscalculation (their words) and will compensate people with pre-orders with a free game.

 

The best would obviously have been that the troubles never happened, but I consider giving people free games as a compensation is quite fair given the circumstances.

[SkateZilla]

I easily copied the server data, modded my HOSTS file and sent the connection to the Server right back to my PC... running an alternate server.service on my own pc to send signals back to the game. My saves are securely stored on my own HDD under the servers folder . :p

 

Alot of stuff can be done when playing around in Debug Mode

[Splat]

I easily copied the server data, modded my HOSTS file and sent the connection to the Server right back to my PC... running an alternate server.service on my own pc to send signals back to the game. My saves are securely stored on my own HDD under the servers folder . :p

 

Alot of stuff can be done when playing around in Debug Mode

 

Nice! So you've bypassed the EA servers altogether? I'd bet reddit would love to know about that if it doesn't already.

[cichlidfan]

I easily copied the server data, modded my HOSTS file and sent the connection to the Server right back to my PC... running an alternate server.service on my own pc to send signals back to the game. My saves are securely stored on my own HDD under the servers folder . :p

 

Alot of stuff can be done when playing around in Debug Mode

 

I thought you were not getting it. ;)

 

Pass... Beta tested, Submitted at least 40 bugs, and not one of them has been addressed.

...

 

I'll Stick with CitiesXL, hopefully they patch the pooor single threaded crap out of it.

[SkateZilla]

I thought you were not getting it. ;)

 

My brother bought it, and came to me to fix it, cause it was ticking him off.

(Being on a Laptop and traveling), Since he dont care for social play with others, it was easy.

 

When i have time, I'll also run through it to see if I cant remove the amazingly small Zone Boundries.

[agrasyuk]

what can i say, i'm quite sorry i spent money on it at this point. multiplayer is kinda cool if everything would have worked as it should have, but the server BS situation its preventing that. i didn't try every specialization yet, but the limited city size gets me bored already. and i guess i figured out it is not really for me - i prefer offline sandbox which this game is not... somehow i don't feel like starting the game again.

 

my last hope is for region editing tools and all the rest of the good stuff will get there somehow eventually. IMHO original SC4 was quite frustrating untill RH showed up. i hope something alike will surface.

[cichlidfan]

I am not completely done poking at it but unless something changes I don't expect to spend much more time with it.

 

On a positive note, I figure I wasted more money by not buying the TM Warthog from the beginning. ;)

 

I am also quite sure it won't be the last time I regret purchasing a game.

[Ali Fish]

plenty good series have their hickups ehhh ! this is one series that i want to see bounce back though. Irregardless of Ea/maxis nonsense theres a simcity game out there begging to be made with that glassbox engine. there really is. and its a big selling properly recieved and enjoyed product. If EA have the foresight through hindsight we might see that, If not this is proof that Ea and the new generation of gamers are simply never going to to cut the grade in terms of quality and substancial value for money.

 

4/10 from EG. Clearly people need to stop pre ordering these games if they want to continue to have good quality games made. Games that are made under the premise of the essentiall requirment of being good quality driven products that sell themselves naturally. Because they are good and not created under the shroud of a conceptual notion that preorders will definetly make it worth while..

 

They sure did make it worth while for EA. How about you and your 4/10 game with top level PR and marketing techniques ? Particularly happy with it ? Dont Preorder! There is a time and a place for a pre order. Kickstarter proves that loosly. It`s not from EA or any of these publishers and developers simply seeking to create finance over and above the very artistic nature of our gaming endeavours. Or taking a good idea and twisting it for financial bennefit. Open your eyes folks. If this is what your buying and is succesfull then the really really good products will be few and far between and that is a Fact!.

 

EA`s stocks have only been unsettled by this debacle by no more than 1%. i`m serious when i say EA will continue to do this unless you stop right now. I certainly didnt see a 4/10 game quality video in any of there marketing videos did you ?

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-03-15-simcity-review

Edited March 15, 2013 by Ali Fish

[upupandaway]

Er?

 

They've made a statement that it was a stupid miscalculation (their words) and will compensate people with pre-orders with a free game.

 

The best would obviously have been that the troubles never happened, but I consider giving people free games as a compensation is quite fair given the circumstances.

 

 

Quite frankly, after paying them 80€ in advance and two betas, I expect EA and Maxis to deliver. What happened instead was an impressive display of incompetence and subsequent blabla/excuses to placate the paying customers. They apparently couldn´t handle the technology involved in such an MMO-style launch (which they did handle before) and after the US launch they couldn´t simply stop the whole thing and roll back - sure, but some honesty might have helped, not the impression that they are always lying to your face with a big smile...

AND I don´t care for other games as compensation. It´s probably not even gonna be anythig like Crysis 3 / Far Cry 3 but rather Colonial Marines. They should instead do refunds for the didgital pre-purchase - that´s the right thing and you know it.

 

This whole dance around offline-mode, lost savegames (all in my case), fuzzy game mechanics, disabled features which still haven´t been reactivated and EA´s/Maxis´ reluctance to get eye-to-eye with the customers/community is stunning in it´s disrespectfulness.

It may sound simplistic, but why should I always be forgiving?! Screw them.

Edited March 16, 2013 by upupandaway

[winz]

The best would obviously have been that the troubles never happened, but I consider giving people free games as a compensation is quite fair given the circumstances.

No, the ability to have a refund is the only valid option in this case. They failed to provide a service the customer payed for. It doesn't matter if it will be fixed in a week or two, it didn't work at the time of purchaces. The same for bugs that get apparent in later game stages.

No allowing a refund, because it's a digital download, is ignorance and abuse on EAs part. It's bound to your origin account and there is no way you will be able to play it after they disable it.

Games should be refundable as any faulty goods you pruchace.

 

If my new sat-nav is freezing every 15minutes, then I want a refund, I'm not interested in a SW upgrade thay will come in 2-weeks, that might solve the problem. The same should apply to games.

[Ali Fish]

you are very correct Winz.

 

ohh look real racing 3 another piss poor 3/10 EA game declared a resounding success by EA after imposing micro transactions.

 

The business model is finally becoming the heart of the game. or is it the other way around ? either way no matter what you pay for it, its not enough and never will be. thats the future of gaming as far as the top dog is concerned.

Edited March 18, 2013 by Ali Fish

[upupandaway]

The bashing they continue to receive is well deserved in my (not so humble anymore) opinion. Today I could only facepalm repeatedly after reading the list of games they put out to compensate people. To me it seems rather cheap like all that came from EA during the last 10 days - just BS and misinformation.

 

BF3 (supposedly good, but old and I´m not into FPS anymore)

Mass Effect 3 (very good, but also old and I already have it)

Bejeweled / Plants vs. Zombies (seriously?!)

MOHW (just another bad game being sold by EA)

DS3 / NFSMW (just more mediocre reiterations of a successful trademark)

 

and finally:

 

Sim City 4 (is there some kind of irony, where the old game is meant to compensate for the shitty reiteration they sold to you before?! or is it just a cynical joke?)

 

Really, the only thing missing on that list is Colonial Marines...

[Ali Fish]

That is some pretty fun shit including simcity 4 in the lineup. i mean how out of touch do they want to publicly state they are.

 

 

"We're humbled by your patience and passion for the game. Thanks for building something very special with us, together."

 

lol you`re all in it together. Apparently.

 

I`d like to know what EA offered to the sub reddit owners to clean the reality up. and now a CEO resignation... sheesh.

 

1.1 million sales in 2 weeks.

 

i can see Maxis getting closed down within 2 years from now.

Edited March 18, 2013 by Ali Fish

[cichlidfan]

EA CEO John Riccitiello steps down